Long post title, but it is really important to separate the successes surrounding hurricane Irene from the flakes. Flakes run around claiming bald face lies, like how Irene was caused by Global Warming. On the other hand, the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Hurricane Center (NHC) pretty much succeeded – though they need to resist the drama-media’s siren song when it comes to focusing on ‘worst case’ scenarios.

Or in the case of a Cat 3 hitting NYC, they need to avoid pathological case scenarios. These are scenarios so rare it is impossible to plan or prepare from them. For example, it is technically possible for every nation on the coast of an ocean to build for the threat of a 30 foot tsnumai – something we have seen twice in the last 11 years (once in Japan and once in the Indian Ocean). But the problem here is these kinds of events are extremely rare, so do we build everywhere for them?

What about 9.0 earthquakes? 3 foot blizzards? Comet or asteroid impacts? We cannot afford to make every home, restaurant, store and office building immune to all the natural disasters we know can hit us at any point in time. So we build and prepare to the reasonable spectrum of cases, and then hope we never see anything bigger. Katrina was a great example of missing the point.

In Mississippi, where the storm hit strongest, the coast was wiped clean of humanity’s structures. But the evacuation orders were heeded and very few people lost their lives. In New Orleans the city actually weathered the storm, but lack of maintenance on the city’s levies (due to funneling those dollars to special projects by corrupt politicians) combined with bad decisions not to evacuate by the Mayor and Governor of that state, led to a disaster that NEED NOT HAPPEN. Unlike Mississippi, where nothing humanity could do would stop Mother Nature, New Orleans showed what happens when we don’t maintain plans and preparedness. Human screw ups caused New Orleans – and no amount of pointing at President Bush is going to change that fact.

By Monday night, five days before Irene first hit the East Coast, the hurricane center figured the storm would come ashore around the North Carolina-South Carolina border. By Tuesday night, they predicted it would rake the coast. And on Friday morning – 24 hours before landfall – they had the storm’s next day location to within 10 miles or so.

Twenty years ago, 24-hour forecasts were lucky if they got it right within 100 miles and the average 36-hour forecast within 146 miles. With Irene, that was about the accuracy of the five-day forecast.

There is no doubt people were saved. I remember the damage a hurricane could inflict in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The storms have not changed in force, the people have been forewarned and able to make decisions.

For those short sighted fools who think we don’t need the NWS this is what we invested our money in all these years – the ability to warn people precisely. Which is why most of us on the Eastern Seaboard did not have to be panicked or concerned. Those in the path of the storm surge and rain had to take precautions. But we do this all the time and every year. To this day, the worst flooding we had in my house was not from Hurricanes coming through but from 3 days of rain from a Nor’ Easter. Panicking the entire coast was not necessary. Warning those who needed to know was a necessity. Somehow the balance was lost this time.

However, what the NWS and NHC (and NO ONE) can predict is the hour by hour energy or life of the storm:

They knew where it was going. But what it would do when it got there was another matter.

Predicting a storm’s strength still baffles meteorologists. Every giant step in figuring out the path highlights how little progress they’ve made on another crucial question: How strong?

This is why we send planes into hurricanes 3-4 times a day to take numerous measurements across the structure – the cyclone as a system interacting with the atmosphere and ocean as independent systems is too complex. We don’t have the science yet to work this out even to predict out 4-6 hours what will happen (which goes to show you how silly it is for some to think they can predict out years an decades in advance what our global climate will be, when local climate still baffles us a week out).

The hype around Irene was from the big-government left-wing and drama-media, trying to prove they are still viable and important to society. They are not. Sober and balanced communication of what the NWS and NHC models were saying would have been plenty and sufficient. Warnings on times and locales, breadth of wind and rain, and hourly checks on strength are all people need to avoid harm.

Those who seek out danger tend to be injured because they are in need of a life lesson, they cannot be helped. And then there will always be the acts of God, such as the lightening strike or the tree that finally falls. That comes with the territory of being alive.

Big government and drama media were a useless irritants in this case. We did not need all the staged hype (news casters should not be trying to act out while normal folks walk by in the background). Just send out the warnings, we are more than capable of processing and acting on the data ourselves.

Update: To those who claim hurricanes are worse now than ever before, a little real data is in order (from WUWT – click to enlarge):

As can plainly be seen, we are actually experiences a historic LOW in intense cyclonic storms here on Planet Earth.

4 Responses to “What The NWS & NHC Got Right, And What The Drama Media & Nanny State Screwed Up”

Since this kind of thing keeps happening in many different areas, I strongly feel that one can infer a general rule from our multitude of observations. In fact, I live by this rule nowadays.

Here’s the rule: if the MSM hypes any event, whether it is physical, moral, political or economic – the actual importance of whatever they are terrified of will be inversely proportional to the actual, real world chances of it turning into something of actual concern.

Or, to say it plainly, the more the MSM focuses on anything, the more it becomes likely that it is a completely inconsequential trend or event.

ON the other hand – if there is some event whcih seems as if it could be serious, but the MSM ignores it completely (as the threat from Katrina was ignored until 24 hours AFTER it hit) then the odds become higher and higher that this will be the true Black Swan that does huge amounts of damage to the system.

It was actually two Flood Walls that failed. It was an Engineering disaster. The water pressure caused the walls to buckle and water got under them. Once that happened, it was just a matter of time. It was not corruption but a design flaw that was to blame. The Army Corps of Engineers built the levees and flood walls.

The walls and anchors should have gone down deeper based upon the soil conditions. After the cause was determined, there was a debate about whether it should have been known at the time based upon the soil samples taken. The soil was originally swamp land, and it is basically compressed plant matter. I think they were short by about 30′.

RE: Hurricanes & Evacuating

Evacuating is not cheap, and it can be devastating for the less well off. Loss of work, lodging, food, gas, etc. are not trivial for some, and even for those more fortunate, the evacuation may become their vacation. If your vehicle breaks down, the options are severely limited.

The final cost for NYC will be substantial, but they can absorb it. Less well off areas are not able to absorb it. My guess is one or two more of these, and even NYC will redefine the minimum threshold for this type emergency.

RE: Katrina & The Aftermath

Unfortunately, it became a political game to the rest of Country. It was Bush’s fault (Republican); it was the Mayor & Governor’s fault (Democrats); it was Global Warming; it was corruption; blah, blah, blah. The result is that nobody wants to be blamed for a similar incident, and since the Feds will be footing much of the cost, who cares. A lot could have been learned from the incident, but unfortunately, the lesson is “better safe than sorry”. Somebody should remind these folks about the boy who cried “Wolf”.

One positive outcome is that we have now identified another group of people living in the wrong areas. I await the hue and cry for these people to pack up and move, but I have more sense than to hold my breath waiting for it.

Obama Didn’t Actually Ride The Bus On His So Called “Bus Tour”
August 29, 2011 8:05:51 PM MDT · by Halfmanhalfamazing · 41 replies
Pat Dollard ^ | August 28th | Angella Philips
This is really disgusting! The so called “Bus Tour” was not a bus tour at all ! An AP reporter said that Obama might have ridden these expensive buses only one mile at each stop. Therefore, it wasn’t really a “BUS TOUR”! Obamaspent most of the “BUS TOUR” on an airplane traveling between stops. Itlooks like Obama has scammed the American people again……..with the help of the liberal media. It’s no damn telling just how much this “show” cost the American taxpayer.